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Zevenbergen shares his lean enterprise expertise with several local
businesses
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05/10/2009
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When Dale Zevenbergen leads a continuous improvement event, he helps
employees visualize the entire production process to give them a better
sense of how things fit together and where the extra steps come in.
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In lean times it makes sense that businesses would want to know more
about lean enterprise.
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\'46irst\_year business professor Dale Zevenbergen is a strong advocate
and experienced resource person for the business model known as lean
enterprise. He teaches its concepts in his Operations Management class,
but he also works with local companies that want to learn more about
how the approach can help them do what they are doing better.
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Lean enterprise is a system for organizing and managing product development,
operations, suppliers, and customer relations, says Zevenbergen. It
also helps a company serve its customers better, produce better\_quality
products, and use less human effort, less space, less time, and less
capital.
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Zevenbergen has recently been working with a couple of local companies
to help them assess their work flow and figure out how they could
improve it. \'46or Zevenbergen, who regularly participated in Continuous
Improvement events at Pella Corporation before coming to Dordt, leading
people through the process is something he can almost do in his sleep.
But for his students, it is an invaluable learning opportunity. Although
they get no special credit for their participation, Zevenbergen\uc1\u8217?s
students learn more and learn it more quickly than if they studied
it only in class.
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\uc1\u8220?Plus it\uc1\u8217?s a good way for Dordt to assist businesses
who support the college,\uc1\u8221? says Zevenbergen.
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Lean proponents say that in most companies only a small number of
the steps in their processes are crucial to creating the product the
customer is paying for. The key is meeting customer needs, according
to this model. Anything that doesn\uc1\u8217?t improve the value or
quality of the product for the customer should be re\_examined or
eliminated\uc1\u8212?to create a \uc1\u8220?leaner\uc1\u8221? operation.
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To get lean, companies ask people involved in a particular process
to sit down together, diagram every step they go through, from concept
to delivery, and identify waste and inefficiencies. This highlights
small details that can be corrected quickly and allows them to make
immediate and significant improvements, says Zevenbergen. In the meantime,
the company can work on longer term changes it wants to make. Other
pieces of the process involve keeping inventory low by producing only
when there is demand and by continually reassessing efforts to reduce
effort, space needed, time, cost, resources, and mistakes.
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\uc1\u8220?One \uc1\u8216?event\uc1\u8217? helps them determine whether
this is something that will be helpful for them,\uc1\u8221? says Zevenbergen.
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In his recent work with Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux Center, Zevenbergen
worked with Dordt Alumnus Harry Groenendyk. Together they mapped the
process (under study), identified where there was wasted time/effort/space,
and came up with ideas for improvement. The company and its employees
can now set priorities for how to act and begin making changes.
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\uc1\u8220?It\uc1\u8217?s a pretty simple concept but can be difficult
to implement and maintain unless the company embraces it as part of
their culture,\uc1\u8221? says Zevenbergen, who estimates that while
at Pella Corporation he was part of more than seventy Continuous Improvement
events. But he is convinced that the benefits of cost savings, improved
products, and employee ownership for their work makes it worth the
effort.
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People who do the work have the best sense of how things are working.
They need to be valued and heard, says Zevenbergen. When they are,
they feel much better about their work. That benefits the company
and empowers people to come up with good ideas that will improve their
work. Although some decisions still need to be made by company executives,
in a continuous improvement event, titles need to be left at the door,
says Zevenbergen. \uc1\u8220?It flattens an organization\uc1\u8212?and
makes it work better.\uc1\u8221?
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Zevenbergen acknowledges that it is easier to implement lean enterprise
efforts in a company that is growing. It\uc1\u8217?s obviously easier
for employees to take an honest look at eliminating waste in a process
if it means they will go on to another assignment rather than lose
their job.
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\uc1\u8220?But lean enterprise can be and has been successful even
in companies that are not growing and in union settings, says Zevenbergen,
acknowledging that it builds in other challenges and requires another
level of communication and participation.
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Zevenbergen looks forward to working with more businesses, taking
with him more students, and maybe opening the door for more internships
for his students. And, just maybe, he says, colleges could think about
this model of assessment in the future.
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SALLY JONGSMA
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